


(un)sanctified

by alanxna, clairelutra



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Older Man/Younger Woman, Pining, Sex Education, Teacher-Student Relationship, increasingly transparent attempts to deny that platonic sex-tutoring is actually just sex, the hands-on type
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:35:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28873950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alanxna/pseuds/alanxna, https://archiveofourown.org/users/clairelutra/pseuds/clairelutra
Summary: The moral sanctity of teaching one's sixteen-year-old student about sex was more or less respectable until hands and mouths started going places, and then it skipped a bit past 'reprehensible' into 'morally bankrupt'.Not but a few hours ago, Numair would have considered himself an upstanding sort of person.
Relationships: Numair Salmalín/Veralidaine Sarrasri
Comments: 16
Kudos: 71
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	(un)sanctified

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HogwartsToAlexandria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HogwartsToAlexandria/gifts).



> Of interest:
> 
> *takes place in an AU where it's feasible that Daine and Numair would have had a lot of downtime during the year Daine was sixteen, but whether that means 'no war' or 'the war was cleaned up unrealistically fast' or 'the war happened later' or 'no main plot at all' is left in the air.
> 
> *implies but doesn't follow the "Underage character and adult are in a loving committed relationship" tag; it's more "Underage character and adult enter a loving committed relationship", so it remains untagged, but it does make an appearance, so.

There was something to be said about moral sanctity with regards to having sex with one's sixteen-year-old student—namely, that it was terribly compromised and you should quite rightly be fired on the spot.

Numair had never necessarily been hired to teach Daine, though, and the equivalent of releasing her from his mentoring would be packing up her bags and ejecting her from his life, which was not only almost too painful to think about, but would be highly impractical for many people.

The moral sanctity of _teaching_ one's sixteen-year-old student about sex was more or less respectable until hands and mouths started going places, and then it skipped a bit past 'reprehensible' into 'morally bankrupt'.

Not but a few hours ago, Numair would have considered himself an upstanding sort of person.

And now here he was, steadying Daine's hips while the tip of his cock found itself buried deeper and deeper inside her quim as she determinedly worked her way down his shaft.

(She was the one who asked. He still should have said no, but—she _asked._ )

Her smoky curls clung to her sweaty temples and caught on damp, passion-flushed shoulders. Her lip was bitten in intense concentration, flickering into a wince from time to time as she rushed herself and took more of him than she could handle. Her modest breasts had been suckled rosy, rising and falling with her shallow, quick breaths, while her thighs trembled on each side of his hips.

She was stunning, breathtaking, _enchanting_ in all her brand new curves and virgin sensitivity and familiar tenacity, and he would hate himself for just how he _burned_ for her if only he wasn't distracted by her body's molten, velvet _death grip_ on his cock.

Virgin sensitive and virgin tight—and impatient to boot. He wasn't a small man. He knew he had to be careful with his lovers. Daine, being Daine, had insisted on getting right to the point, willing to hear no arguments.

He would be a liar if he said that it didn't do things to him to see the dazed, preening look of smug victory she flashed him when their hips met flush. Her eyes near shone with it, that unsteady little smile achingly familiar.

 _Mithros,_ she was adorable.

"Well?" he croaked, amused, even as stars swam in his eyes. "What do you think?"

She frowned, still dazed, at the place where they connected, curling her fingers in the hair on his chest. "That's..." she sighed, her voice stuck in spine-tingling sweetness, "ra-rather... _more_... than I thought it... would be...?"

"Yes," he said patiently, like the way her hips had wiggled on the words hadn't made his vision tunnel for a moment. "Which is _why_ I said warming up properly is important."

She glanced away, chagrined, one of those lovely curls sliding off her shoulder and dangling in front of her chest on its lonesome.

He brushed it back to join its fellows, relishing in the feel of her locks on the backs of his fingers as much as he could when he was trying to keep himself off the edge of orgasm. "May we do things in my order now?"

"Yes, sir," she muttered, red-cheeked and sweeter than spun sugar.

He caressed the blush as he drew his hand back, and she didn't hesitate to lean into the touch. "Good girl."

Pulling her off his cock earned him a desperate, shameless whine like he'd never heard before that nearly had him slamming back into her before he caught himself, and then he set about earning her forgiveness with his mouth between her legs until she sobbed.

It was—difficult, _incredibly_ so, to remember he was supposed to be _teaching_ her and not simply making love to her (an endeavor she didn't help him with much; he'd had affectionate lovers before, but none so instinctively and unselfconsciously _sweet_ ), but he managed to keep up a fairly steady stream of instruction and advice all throughout—or, at least, when his mouth wasn't occupied.

As much as it hurt, it helped, a bit, to remember that it wasn't really _him_ she wanted. He was just... convenient. Someone older and more experienced who she trusted. It wasn't like she had many other options.

It kept him from kissing her more than he should, curbed the temptation to pull her in for round after round for the pure intimacy of it, checked the painfully intense urge to spill his whole heart at her feet, and let him let her go, help her wipe away the physical traces of his touch and set her back on her feet to get on with the rest of her life.

(The moral sanctity of falling in love with your sixteen-year-old student was irrelevant, because love was a choice the heart made, not the mind; _acting_ on that love, however, was a line even he wouldn't cross.)

* * *

It was about three days later, at the end of her lessons, that she closed her books and informed him that he never _had_ taught her how to suck cock, and that was the thing that required the most skill, wasn't it?

When he remembered it later, the look that accompanied the words was too innocent to be believed, but in the moment he was a little too busy trying to make his lungs work correctly to question it.

He actually did make a token attempt at protesting that time, but Daine and her hopeful head tilt and bewitching little smile as she said, "Please?" handily obliterated his protests.

Ironically, it was much easier to keep a grip on himself when he was teaching her how to wreck him with nothing but her mouth. More distance, less intimacy, sexual gratification focused on him alone—

(He pretended he didn't notice the absence of her left hand halfway through, or the way her breath hitched as she squirmed in place. Acknowledging that she found his cock in her mouth... _stimulating_... seemed like a direct line to re-questioning why she'd chosen him in the first place, and that way lie madness.)

—all of which made it much harder to gather her in his arms and kiss her silly.

Which, truly, was for the best. Truly.

* * *

The third time she asked was four days after the second, a doe-eyed request for 'practice'—which he granted her without protest, for which he felt a perfectly proportionate amount of guilt.

The fourth time was three days after that, after which he realized that she'd claimed Monday and Thursday as the days sex was added to her lesson rotation.

The unacknowledged formalization of it made everything worse. A tidy little schedule of _history, mammalian anatomy, maths,_ and _introduction to sex,_ packing up her texts and quills and taking off her clothes at 6 ᴘ.ᴍ. sharp for the last lesson of the day, one that left her dripping sweat and leaking her mentor's seed, red-cheeked and dark-eyed and panting.

If he took even one step back, it was sordid to the point of _vile._ Why did she keep asking? Why did he _keep saying yes?_

(Because he never had been any good at turning her away. Because as hard as he looked, he couldn't find any trace of distress or regret in her, no matter what they ended up doing—if anything, she only seemed happier. Because the way she breathed his name in the stillness between was a kind of rush that couldn't be found anywhere else.)

He wondered, sometimes, if anyone else knew. If anyone noted that she was always wearing her pregnancy charm now, or the way twice a week the muffling spells around his rooms went up for an hour before she left, or if the smell of sex clung to her even through their thorough bathing regime, but Alanna hadn't slashed his throat and Onua was still talking to him and Jon hadn't fired him yet, so he had to assume not.

* * *

"Why on earth do you need so much practice?" he finally asked, two months into their arrangement, with her limp and sated and nearly purring in his arms. He'd given up on holding back. "Who are you preparing for?"

She hummed and nuzzled the hollow of his throat, her hand trailing over his bare hip. "No 'ne in 'ticular," she mumbled, slurring and dozy, and offered no further information.

It was torture to make her leave after that, knowing that she could have fallen asleep in his bed and he would have woken up to her in the morning, their mess sticking them together and his arm numb from how she was tucked in to him, her eyes hazy and affectionate through morning-breath kisses and silly laughter. He _ached_ for it more and more every day, and waking up from half-dreams to find her gone was starting to physically hurt.

He should stop. He should turn her down. He should say no, as he should have been _right from the start._

(He didn't.)

* * *

"I'm not sure I have much more to teach you here, magelet," he said conversationally, a week later, as she nudged aside her work materials and slid into his lap with the evening bell. His arms welcomed her anyway. "You're a quick and thorough learner."

She paused, fixed him with an inscrutable expression, then said, "Well, one could always use more practice," and nosed her way into a kiss before he could question her, a lovely blush on her cheeks.

* * *

Two weeks later, they both got so distracted with talking afterwards that they ended up falling asleep together.

Waking up to her was waking up to a bed full of purring cats, the imprint of pillow creases on her cheek and uncharacteristic grumbling as she was made to attend to the conscious world, burrowing into his chest in favor of getting up.

Walking up to her was forcing him to acknowledge that he wanted to wake up like this every day for the rest of his life.

Goddess _blessed._

* * *

It was the time after that that he finally, finally, _finally_ said no, self-preservation doing what basic morality could not.

"This needs to stop," he said as he caught her shoulder and pushed her back before she could kiss him and steal his mind away all over again.

The absolutely _stricken_ look she gave him was as perversely wonderful as it was painful. "Why? Is there—is there someone else?"

He nearly laughed. They spent half their waking hours together and the rest in each others' general vicinity. Putting aside how entirely gone he was on her, when and where did she think he had the solitude necessary to get something like that past her?

(And here he was, yearning to close the distance even more, to make her his, his, his...)

"No, no one else." He rubbed his face, unable to look at her dead on any longer.

Her eyes were pure supplication. "Then why?"

_Because I should have said no long before this. Because it's sick, the way I'm taking advantage of your innocence. _ _Because the longer this goes on, the more I start to think—_

"If this goes on much longer, it may... give a man the wrong idea about the nature of this relationship, as it were."

(And there it was, too honest and true for comfort.)

"Oh," she said after a long beat of silence. "You'd fall in love with me."

She was too clever by half.

"Bit late for that," he muttered under his breath before he could think it through, and felt her cast a piercing glance in his direction.

"You _are_ in love with me," she corrected herself, and the worst part was that he couldn't deny it, couldn't dodge it, couldn't do _anything_ but let her acknowledge it. He'd said it himself.

"So I'm sure you'll forgive me for refusing you," he said tightly, "as I should have to start."

Slowly, she sat back, and then fixed him with a puzzled frown, her hands loose in her lap. "What? Why should that mean you _don't_ want me?"

"As you get _older_ and _more experienced in life,_ I think you'll find that being intimate with someone who doesn't feel for you nearly the way you feel for them is a rather painful experience," spilled out of him, both more biting and far, _far_ more honest than he had intended to be. He breathed deep and scrubbed his face again. "I'd rather spare myself the heartache, if you please."

"That's a fair odd presumption on the nature of my feelings," she informed him coolly, startling him into looking up at her. She met his eye without a trace of shame or fear. "I love you, you know. I always have."

The utter simplicity and certainty in the statement threw him. He struggled with it for a moment before managing, "You are far too young to know if you're in love with me."

"Am I," she said sourly, then grabbed his wrist and surged up to kiss him.

After three months, kissing her back was automatic, winding his arms around her waist to draw her in, tilting his head and letting her lead the kiss deeper and hotter and wetter.

It wasn't ardor, and it wasn't passion. It was determination and plea, the mewling, melting surrender that was so familiar now, the way she clung to him, lax and trembling and pressing as close as she was physically capable of.

It was a long moment before the kiss ended, long enough to suffuse her _warmth_ into every last inch of him, scalp to extremities to core, and when she pulled away, she didn't go far.

"Do you... do you really think I don't?" she whispered weakly against his lips, sounding much more hurt by the idea than he would have guessed.

That gave him pause.

 _Did_ he think she didn't?

It was difficult to contemplate anything but her body around the fog of adoration and lust she'd left in his head, but he still thought about how natural it was for her to seek him out and linger with him for no reason at all, for her to sit beside him and lean against him or leave her feet in his lap while he was working, for her to fetch him meals when he was distracted and pick up the slack for him without either of them having to say a thing, attentive and affectionate and trusting to the end of time.

All things he'd dismissed individually, but together added up to...

She had sought _him_ out for these 'lessons' and no one else, hadn't she. With sweetness and eagerness he had been too stuck in his head to give due credit.

He rested his forehead against hers. "In my defense, this was very misleading, magelet."

She smiled sheepishly, the curve of her lips so close he could almost still taste them. "I'm sorry. It was honest at the start, cross my heart."

"And now?"

She answered him with a kiss that lasted until his mind was quite pleasantly empty of all else.

"If we do this, we're telling people," he said when his wits started to trickle back in. _And damn the consequences._ "I'm not keeping my lover secret."

She nodded.

"And we _will_ be lovers, just you and I. No one else." It was embarrassing to admit just how much the thought of her using all her newfound knowledge in bed with another had eaten at him.

The corner of her mouth crooked in a little smile, but her gaze didn't waver as she nodded again.

"And for _Mithros' sake,_ no more of this 'lesson' business."

 _That_ brought her up short. The smile slipped off her face, leaving her eyes wide and anxious. "What?"

"Scheduling. Teaching. _Lessons."_ Now she just looked confused. "My self-respect and reputation as an educator may never recover," he elaborated with no small amount of chagrin, "but from this point on, we shall be normal lovers who make love on our own time, as the urge takes us, _not_ twice a week at six ᴘ.ᴍ. on the dot as the last class of the day."

The confusion cleared for more sheepishness, though her shy trepidation could be heard in her voice as she asked, "Then... when?"

"Whenever you want," he promised, because if he was the one calling the shots, they may not leave his bed for a fortnight.

A spark of speculative heat entered her eyes, and she leaned away so she could study his mouth with a terribly contemplative look. "'Whenever I want'?"

He swallowed convulsively, suddenly very, very aware of every point of contact between them. It occurred to him that he hadn't actually been looking for signs of her... _interest,_ and thus had no idea just how often she 'wanted'. The thought left his spine tingling. "...Within reason."

Her slow-dawning smile was one of teasing mischief, nearly a _smirk,_ and the sparkle in her blue-grey eyes had his mouth going bone-dry. "Okay," she said, musical and low. It went _right_ to his cock. "Anything else?"

If there had been, it was well and truly gone now. He kissed her, lazy and hazy and _hot,_ and they were both panting when they resurfaced.

"If you would care to christen our relationship in bed with me, then per—" he started, then cut off with a grunt as her lips found his yet again, her hips hitching needily against his and her hands tugging impatiently at his clothing.

So that was a yes, then.

(He was supposed to consider the moral sanctity of all this, he knew, but the way she glowed and laughed when he finally let himself kiss every knob of her spine, her every scar and mole and mark, each and every feature of her lovely face—it made contrition nigh impossible.

He fell asleep with her fingers in his hair and woke to a devastatingly fond smile as calloused fingertips rubbed his scruff, found that Daine was entirely amenable to being held down and kissed silly first thing in the morning, and decided that guilt could be carefully reconsidered at a later date.)


End file.
